


Accelerating Entropy

by rico with a gun (Heterochromia_Mars)



Category: Penguins of Madagascar
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Author is not a scientist, Gen, M/M, can be read as human au, pretentious as all hell, unspellchecked pls be nice 2 me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 20:12:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12942891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heterochromia_Mars/pseuds/rico%20with%20a%20gun
Summary: Everything goes outwards, or onwards. Butterflies die, fruit rots, sand scatters.





	Accelerating Entropy

Rico doesn’t know what the word philosophy means, but he knows that things don’t go _back_ \- that butterflies don’t go back into their cocoons, fruit doesn’t reattach itself to branches, sandcastles don’t rebuild themselves after the tide comes crashing in. 

Everything goes outwards, or onwards. Butterflies die, fruit rots, sand scatters.

Things break. He can make them break _faster._

So he does, because it feels like it’s what he’s meant to do.

He never realises it, per se, the fact that things only ever go forward. Never pieces it together consciously, separately from his inner drive to _break stuff_ \- something that’s been with him as long as he can remember. 

But there are times when the certainty of it all is something he can’t hold - when he has to know if someone else knows what he knows: That the world is breaking itself apart.

“Sometimes I worry about what goes on in that head of yours, Rico,” Skipper tells him. Skipper is melodramatic and larger than life but he doesn't get the big picture, Rico thinks. (He also thinks that maybe he isn’t meant to; that maybe Skipper lives in the now, makes the small stuff big enough that if he thought the big stuff was big too he’d be crushed under the weight of it all. 

Private smiles at him with a little confusion and a lot of patience and says, “But you can just fix things when they break, Rico. Put things back together again,” and he doesn’t _get_ it, not really. Or maybe he’s right, and some things can be fixed. Maybe things are different for someone who doesn’t break everything he touches.

He doesn’t mean to tell Kowalski, not really - it just bubbles over into the eerie glow of the lab in early morning hours, and Kowalski looks at him strangely. Not badly, but… strangely. 

“There’s a word for that,” he says slowly. “Entropy. The universe inevitably moving from order to chaos over time.” The look on his face is something akin to pride, laced with something softer. “I tried to explain the concept to Skipper once, and, well, that went - poorly. Although I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you’d believe in some incarnation of entropy given that you do increase it at - at an alarming rate,” he continues, and stutters to a halt because Rico is looking at him like he built the stars, and he can’t help but smile helplessly back.

“Entropy,” Rico tests the word out, stumbling over the syllables, and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> i am not a scientist
> 
> also i started setting this up to post at 4:20am and its 420 words long and i didnt even do either of those things on purpose . i think this fic might be cursed


End file.
